Can Marijuana Cause Psychosis?

Marijuana is often thought to be a relatively harmless drug (after all it’s from the earth) right? Many people claim it’s medicinal use has greatly improved their quality of life, but could there be a troubling link to causing, or progressing mental illness?

“Using marijuana, or cannabis, may cause psychosis to develop sooner in patients already predisposed to developing it, and in other patients the drug may even cause psychosis, according to a new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

“This finding is an important breakthrough in our understanding of the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis,” according to the study. “It raises the question of whether those substance users would still have gone on to develop psychosis a few years later.”

Patients with psychosis tend to lose touch with reality and are prone to hallucinations and delusions about what is happening around them. Psychosis is frequently reported among patients with diagnosed mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”